WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN jams, jellies, and fruit spreads? Melissa wonders as she roams the narrow aisles, pushing one cart and pulling another. She realizes she looks like a donkey or some other work horse, caught between the one trolley that’s already piled high with all manner of pasta, tins of tomatoes, fresh greens, cheeses with names she can’t pronounce, and baguettes, and another that’s nearly filled with bottles of wine, seltzer water, and the thick fruit purees that the guests requested. Each one is expensive and Melissa knows she’s nearly at her budget limit, but she can’t ditch the one item the guests asked for specifically.
“Come on!” Melissa grumbles at the cart in front of her as its tilted wheel makes it bump into the cereal boxes. Three boxes of Alpine Muesli fall down, two on the floor, one on her head. I signed up for this, why, exactly? Melissa wonders. But when she stands up, she has exactly the opposite thought. Oh, this is why I signed up. In front of her is the guy—that guy—JMB, his black and orange jacket unzipped to reveal a plain white T-shirt. She stares at him, taking in his dark jeans, heavy snow boots, and his perfect mouth. Aside from being tall, winter-tanned, with high cheekbones and a sturdy presence, JMB has something else, Melissa thinks, watching his every move. He’s got a casual grace. Confidence without cockiness like so many guys have to have. The combination of all of this makes Melissa aware of each of her limbs, her heart, her face blushing, aware of an invisible current of energy tying her to him.
He runs a tanned hand through his dark hair, eyeing the bakery selections set on the wooden counter in front of him.
If this moment were scripted, Melissa thinks, he would turn around, see me, and we’d instantly connect—mind, heart, and lips. Instead, Melissa’s cart takes off again, this time forward. She grabs the cart behind her and then tries to steady the one in front, while still contending with the cereal boxes. She gives up with them, adding them to her cart, and chases the trolley as it heads down the aisle. I’m supposed to cook gourmet meals for fifteen when I can’t even shop for the food without injuring myself? Melissa grabs for the cart’s red handle while the clerk behind the cash register clucks his tongue in disapproval. Knowing my luck, I’ll be banned from the store and have to make meals out of snow, she thinks. She succeeds in getting the cart to stop moving, only to be bashed in the butt by the other one. “Ow!” she yells, louder than she wanted the sound to come out. The clerk shakes his head and mutters something in French at her, while Melissa crouches down, imprisoned by her own clumsiness and the metal carts. “I’m an idiot,” she says to herself.
“And you’re talking to yourself.” JMB stares down at her, one of his hands on each of the carts. He steadies them while managing to cause a small avalanche in Melissa’s chest.
“I’m not insane, by the way,” she says and stands up. “I’m just …”
“New at this?” he suggests, smiling at her. His eyes crinkle at the sides, making his grin appear wider, softer. Melissa notices a thin scar over his top lip and can’t stop herself from staring at it. She wonders what it would feel like to touch it; she nearly allows her hand to wander there until she blushes and clenches her palms into fists to keep them under control.
“Yeah, new at this,” Melissa says. “Obviously, I’ve shopped before but not for so much at one time.” She looks at the contents of both carts—piles of paper towels, an oversized bag of basmati rice in a burlap sack, hoards of apples and carrots—enough for a week? What if the guests love carrots and eat through them? Or what if she hadn’t figured the correct amount of pasta? “Honestly, I have no idea what I’m doing—I just hope it turns out okay.” She looks directly at JMB. He looks back, the scar on his lip rising as he speaks.
“That’s a refreshing perspective. Most people around here pretend they know everything. You know, ‘fake it till you make it’ sort of thing.”
“I don’t think I could do that,” Melissa says.
“Too honest?” JMB asks.
Melissa shrugs. “Either that or just not a very good faker.”
“Well, don’t be surprised if you find you’re in the minority here.” JMB steadies her carts and helps her wheel them to the cash register where she hands over almost the entire wad of bills from the petty cash allotment. Melissa wonders if maybe he’s warning her about specific people, or if maybe even he’s guilty of faking something. Certainly not his appeal, Melissa thinks, that’s too real. She knows if she stays around him too much longer, she’ll like him, and that would be risky—she can’t have a repeat of last year.
By the doorway, Melissa zips her coat and stands with her huge amounts of boxed groceries, wondering how the hell she’ll get back to Les Trois now that Celia Sinclair has made out with Paul, and off with the van. What she does know is that the carts take up space, causing JMB to have to stand either too far away to converse with her or in between the carts, a bit too close to her to be unremarkable. I have to get away from him, she thinks. Or it will be too late and I’ll officially have a crush on him. And that can’t happen.
“Thanks for helping me with my clumsiness,” Melissa says. She crosses her arms over her chest and feels bulky. So maybe the down jacket doesn’t downplay my semirounded physique, but it’s warm, she thinks.
JMB reaches into his pocket and pulls out keys. He’s near enough that Melissa can feel his breath as he speaks. She looks again at the scar and in her fantasy she’s cool enough, brazen enough that she reaches out to touch it—then he kisses her. But no such luck in reality. “So you’re all set then?” he asks.
Oh my god, please leave before I like you, love you, jump you, or make an ass out of myself like last year with my former crush. Melissa slides some Chapstick on her lips to keep her hands busy and nods. “Yup, I’m good to go.” Where? Nowhere, since I’m stranded, but never mind.
“All right—see you around then.” JMB waits there as if she’s supposed to say something. “Mesilla, right?”
Melissa is caught between cracking up and feeling dumb, and he’s so close to her, so kissably near, that she just shrugs and nods. He looks at her a second longer and gives a guy-nod, pigeon style out and back, and steps away from the store and out into the town where the sun is rising higher.
Why didn’t I say something? Melissa questions her brain power. Not only am I stranded here with no ride and twenty minutes until I’m due back, but I’m also forever going to be Mesilla to him. Fantastic. At least I didn’t get sucked into some unrequited crush situation. She calls the chalet house phone, hoping Harley will pick up and come get her in town. Hosts can sign out vans without prior approval, but no one under the host can, so Dove wouldn’t be any help. After six rings, Melissa shakes her head, wondering why no one is picking up. She thinks about using some of her money for a taxi, but it would leave no room for buying any provisions during the week—and what if they run out of milk or one of the kids hates pasta? Melissa sighs, hating that she feels both stranded and paralyzed—why can’t she just make a decision?
Out the glass doorway she sees JMB and decides that getting back to The Tops is more important than potentially entering so far into the crush zone that she can’t get out.
“JMB! Hey!” Melissa opens the door and shouts to him. When he turns, she waves at him and when he returns the gesture, her heart pounds. So much for trying to remain uninterested.
“You need a ride?” He strides to her. “Why didn’t you just sign out a van?”
“I didn’t think I was allowed to,” she says and feels instantly like she’s thirteen and unlicensed.
JMB frowns and shakes his head. “No—cooks can drive the vans as long as it’s business-related.” He eyes the stacks of boxed-up foods. “Which this trip clearly is.” It seems to Melissa that in one motion he offers her a ride and helps her wheel the carts out onto the street to his car where they pack everything into the trunk and backseat. “I’ll be right back,” he says and leaves her buckling herself into the passenger seat, warming her hands on the heater. Melissa wishes she were one of those cool girls who looked stunning all windswept and out of breath from the panic of almost being late and stranded, but she’s not. She knows she probably looks the way she feels—discombobulated by the bumpy ride with bitchy Celia Sinclair, frayed by the shopping and planning, and still nervous from the upcoming cooking, guests, and trying not to dwell on her hot ride home.
“Thought you might want this.” JMB slides behind the wheel and hands her a mug of coffee. Not a paper cup, a real pottery mug.
“Don’t you need to give this back to the coffee shop?” she asks before she sips.
He shrugs, his jacket crinkling. “I know the people who own the place—they’ll let me bring it back later.”
Wedged into the car with enough food for a week, with a guy who brought her coffee, helped her with the hassles of shopping, and who makes her whole body feel on the edge of something, Melissa lets the forthcoming stresses go for just a few seconds. Who cares if he thinks my name is Mesilla? Who cares if he’s a ski guide and therefore way above me in the totem pole of jobs and social circles? Who cares if I have to make a welcome brunch for fifteen people and I have to learn as I go—it’s not as if I’m cooking for royalty, right?
JMB has one hand on the wheel, the other on the manual gear stick, and hums to the song playing on the radio.
“I can’t believe they still play ABBA here,” Melissa says, listening.
“That’s the thing about places like this,” he says as the car turns back up the hill toward Les Trois. “It’s timeless. Music, fashion trends, famous people, they all just come and go so easily—it doesn’t matter what decade it is, or anything.”
Suddenly this makes Melissa feel tiny, unimportant. “So what does matter, then?”
“Living in it, I guess,” he says. “Hang on—it’s way too early for philosophy.” He moves into third gear to get up the steepest part of the hill around the curve. He continues to hum. “You know this song?”
Melissa shoots him a look as if to say everyone does. “Voulez-vous …,” she sings quietly enough so he hears her but not enough so it sounds like she’s up for karaoke right now.
Voulez-vous. She thinks about the translation. Even in sappy disco tunes it’s still worth wondering. “Voulez-vous,” she sings again, looking at JMB’s scar. It’s shaped like a crescent moon and just as silver against his tan skin. “Voulez-vous? Do you want to?” the lyrics ask over and over. JMB doesn’t answer.